Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-07-08
A Startling Instance Of the Slender
Tenure Upon Which Great Results
0ftentimes Hangs,
Small Circumstances With Mighty Re.
sults-NO Insignificances TO Be
Found in Our Lives
The Plainest Mans Life is an Island Be
tween Two Eternities, Eternity Past
and Eternity TO Come,
sneclaI 70 the Gazctte.

]
an excursion Of six days, taking in New
port, Nantucket, and this island. TIT
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, DID, preached
here this morning in the great camp
meeting Tabernacle. Thousands of PEG.
pie were present from sII parts Of New
England. The music was conducted by
band.
DR.. Talmage's text was: Through s
window in basket was lei down by ;ht
wall I'll. Cor. xi.:33. He said:
Sermons on Paul in jail, Paul on Mars
Hill, Paul in the shipWreCk, Paul before
the Sanhedrim, Paul before Felix ase
plentiful, bu! in my text we have Paul =
3 basket.
Damascus is q city Of white and gI.g
ening architecture sometimes called az.
eye Of the East" sometimes called "g
pearl surrounded by emeralds,n at one
time distinguished for swords of the best
material called Damascus blades, and up
holstery of richest fabric called damasks.
4 horseman by the name of Saul riding
toward this city had been thrown from
the saddle. The horse had dropped IN
der flash from the sky, which at the
same time wgs so bright it blinded the
rider for many days, and, l think, SO per-
manently injured his eyesight that this
defect OF vision became the thO-- in the
Aesl be sfteTwR.ls speaks OF. lie start
ed for Damascus to butcher Christians,
but after that hard fall from his horse he
was g changed man ana preeched Christ
il Damascus till the city was shaken TO
its foundation.
The Mayor gives authority for mis- ar
rest, ard the popular cry IS: "IIiIl him ,
XII himn The city is surrounded by q
high wal, and the gates are watched by
the police lest the Cicilian preacher
escape. Many OF the houses sTe built on
the wall, and their balconies projected
clear over and lowered above the garden
outside. 1t YVES customary to lower
baskets out Of the balconies and pull up
fruits and flowers from the gardens. To
this day visitors TO the monastery Of
Mount Sinai are lifted and let down in
baskets. Detectives prOwled around
from house TO house looking for Paul,
but his friends hid MIN, now in one place,
now in another. He is 20 coward, as
fifty incidents IN his lie demonstrate
But he feels that his work is not done
yet, and so he SYades assassination. "Is
that preacher here?" the foeming moo
shout at one house door. "Is that fanatic
heTe?" the police shout at another house
door. Sometimes on the street ircognito
he passes through crowd of Clenched
fists and sometimes he secretes himself
on the house-top, At last the infuTiate
pOpalgce get on
SURE TRACK OF HIM.
They have positive evidence that he is in
the house Of one of the Christians, the
bslcony of whose home reaches over the
wall. "Here he is! Here he is!n The
and bIasphemy and bowling
of the DUrsueTs are at the front door.
They bresk in "FetCh out that Gospel
izer, and lot US hang his head on the city
gate. Where is he?n The emergency
was terrible. PTOvideGtiallY there was q
good stout basket in the house. Paul's
friends fRsten rope to the basket. Paul
steps into it, The basket is lifted to the
edge Of the balcony on the wall, and then
While Paul holds OIL to the end Of the
rope with both hands, MS friends lower
away, carefully and cautiously, slowly
butsurely, further down ana further down,
until the basket strikes the eGrth and the
apostle steps out and afoot and alone
starts on that famous missionary tour, the
story of which mas astOnished earth and
heaven. Appropriate entry ia Pau's
diary Of travels: Through q window,
in g basket, was l let down by the wall"
Observe, first, on what g slender ten
ure great results hang. The TOpemaker
who twisted that cord fastened TO that
lowering basket never knew how much
would depend upon the strength Of it.
How # il had been broken and the apOS-
tle's life dashed out? What would have
become Of the Christian church? All that
missionary work in Pam
0hilia, CRppadOCia, Galatia, Macedonia
would never have been accomplished.
All MS writings that make up so indis-
pensable and enchsntingja part OF the New
Testament would never have been writ
.sh. The story Of the resurrection would
Fever have been told so glori-
OuSlY as he told it. That
example Of heroic and triumphant endur-
ance at Philippi, in the Mediterranean
EuroClydon, under fagellatiOn, and at his
Oeheadng would not have kindled the
of ten thousand martyTdoms
But that rope holding that basket, how
much depended on 1t! So, again and
again, great results have hung on what
seemed
SLENDER CIRCUMSTANCES
Did ever ship, of many thousand tons,
,ros ing the sea have such an important |
passenger as had once boat of leaves,
rom taffrell TO stern only three OF four !
eet, the vessel made waterproof by |
,oat of bItumen, and floating on the Nile |
With the infant law giver Of the Jews on
BOARD? What if some crocodile should !
.runch it? What if some of the |
.Rttle wading in for 8 drink should sink |
I? Vessels of war sometimes carry |
orty guns looking through the portfolios, |
eady to open battle. But that tiny craft |
IN the Nile seems TO be armed with all |
he guns of thunder that bombarded /
Sinai st the law-giving. On how fragile |
raft sailed how much OF historical i'm
)ortance.
The parsonage al EpWortb, England, is
N ire in the night, and the father
'ushed through the hallway for the res
,ue of his children. Seven children are
,ut and safe on the ground, but one re-
mains in the consuming building. That
me wakes, and finding his bed on fire
md the building crumbling, comes to the
and two peasants make a ladder
II their bodies, one peasant standing on
he shoulder of the other, and
Town the human ladder the boy
lesCends = John Wesley. Ii you
would know how much depended on
hat ladder of peasants ask the millions
# Methodists on both sides of the sea-
Ask their mission stations ell round the
world. Ask Their hundreds of thousands
-lreadY assembled to inin their founder